Four young sailors from Island Clubs travelled to Lymington on Sunday, 10 June to take on 42 other sailors from around the South Coast in the Harken Regatta Fleet Optimist Open 2012.

Haydn Sewell with his trophy 

All the young sailors did the Island proud with an excellent set of results.

Leading from the front was Haydn Sewell, 9, from the Royal Victoria Yacht Club who won the event in style with four race wins out of four to take home the silverware. Being able to discard the worst result in the four race Regatta Haydn won with a total of 3 points.

Lily Elli, 11 from Gurnard Sailing Club, showed that consistency pays in sailing with two sevenths and a sixth place to finish with 20 points in eighth place. Following very close behind was her brother, Freddie Ellis, 8 with a great day’s sailing to score twelfth, tenth and sixth to finish in tenth place.

Oliver Evans, 9, who is a member of both the Royal Victoria Yacht Club and Gurnard Sailing Club, also had a good day on the water to score twelfth, eighth and ninth and finish the event in eleventh place overall. 

It was a testing day for all the sailors with strong easterly winds gusting up to 27 knots against the incoming tide, making conditions very difficult. Keeping their Optimist dinghies upright was a major challenge and there were numerous capsizes across the fleet and a number of retirements. The Isle of Wight sailors all did an excellent job in coping with the worst that our summer could throw at them, with their sailing skills keeping them upright and sailing fast at the front end of the fleet.

Having won the Regatta Fleet Open, Haydn Sewell will go on to compete in the two day Lymington Open for the main fleet next weekend, 16 and 17 June, where he will be competing against some of the UK’s best Optimist sailors.